Docent Diaries

No matter what my assignment, I love my docent duties at the Desert Museum.  Some jobs, however, are more fun than others.  For the past two years, my friend Mary Lou and I have been the Day Captains for the Friday Docents.  Which means we 'get' to spend most of our day in the office doing schedules, organizing the day, making coffee, entering data in the computer, being the in-charge people for all the docent activities for the day, cleaning up the office and lounge, and generally, as another friend put it, "herding cats".  (Just try getting them all together for a photo!) Managing people is always entertaining, frustrating, interesting and normally chaotic.  The reason we became docents, however, is to be out on the grounds of the Museum, talking to visitors and interpreting the Sonoran Desert.  Soon my captaincy stint will be over and I'll be back out doing the really fun stuff.

Here's what our group looks like this year.

There are four or five missing.  It's impossible to find a day when everyone is there, or makes it to the photo shoot on time.  But, this isn't bad.

 Mary Lou and I agreed that, no matter how busy we were, we would still take out our animals for one hour a day.  I am certified this year on Large Raptor, which means I can take out either a Harris' hawk or a barn owl.  We take them out in rotation, and on this day, it was a hawk.

Harris' hawks are a very unique raptor that we are privileged to have as permanent residents in Southern Arizona.  What sets them apart from most other birds of prey is that they are a social raptor, living together in family groups, hunting cooperatively, and all taking part in the nesting process.  The younger birds from the previous brood will assist the parents in guarding the nest and bringing food for the mother and the nestlings.  In each group, an alpha female will be dominant.  The bird I am holding is an adult male.  Males and females are colored alike, but what distinguishes them is size - the females are significantly larger.  For the past several years, I have had Harris' hawks nesting in my neighborhood, and I am now seeing the female on the nest once again.  Every day from October through April, the Museum flies a group of Harris' hawks in our Raptor Free Flight program.  It's a thrilling experience to have one of these big birds fly so closely over your head that their feathers so briefly and gently touch you.  Each year docent can choose which group of animals we want to interpret to the public.  We then go through training and certification to keep our skills current.  The Desert Museum is accredited by the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums), which sets exacting standards for animal care and handling.

Mary Lou and I try to finish most of our duties by around 3pm, which gives us some time to go explore the grounds, talk to visitors, look for fun and interesting sights, and have a little 'play' time.  April is a good time to see butterflies, as well as their larvae and pupae.  Right now, the Pipevine Swallowtails are abundant in all forms.

These handsome guys are the larvae, feeding happily on pipevines,

Soon they will be forming a chrysalis and undergoing the amazing metamorphosis that will allow them to emerge in a totally new form.  Here's what the chrysalis looks like:

Pipevines have a strange little flower called the pipe.

Which is then followed by this fruit.

Sadly I do not have a suitable photo of the adult pipevine swallowtail butterfly, so please excuse me for borrowing a couple from one of my favorite sites, Firefly Forest

As she says, they are difficult to photograph as they seldom sit still.  I guess that's my excuse.  With their iridescent blue on the upper hind wings, and the array of colored spots on the lower wings, these large black butterflies are stunningly beautiful.

With our lack of rain and warm weather, everything seems to be happening a little earlier this year, like the cactus blooming.  All around the grounds, and out in the desert, little hedgehog cacti are sporting their gaudy pink finery, forcing me to stop and get yet another photograph.  Hedgehogs are a small, multi-trunked cactus, generally somewhat inconspicuous until bloom time.

Glorious too are the claret cups, which are another form of hedgehog cactus, and are one of the earliest to bloom.  They are just about finished now, but this one waited for me.

The Museum grounds are alive with dozens of species of blooming flowers, and it is inspiring to just stroll through the gardens and various habitats and take in the amazing palette.

Here are just a few more. Fairy Duster, yellow primrose, blackfoot daisy and California buckwheat.

Lastly, we stopped by to see the coatis, and watched a young Cooper's hawk watching us.

Ahhh, no wonder I long to spend the entire day out on the Museum grounds talking to visitors and just enjoying the theater. Soon, very soon, I'll be able to do that.  At my age, however, I do not wish to speed up time.  So I will enjoy every day as a docent at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, no matter what it brings.

May every day be one you treasure.

Sunday Chronicle

 .  .  . or  that was the week that was.

No Room at the Table

Around 6 in the evening, there is a literal feeding frenzy at the hummingbird feeders, and the birds' normal competitiveness gives way to cooperation.  I now have one feeder in the front of the house, and five in the back.  Each bird has its favorite, but they seem to use them all at various times.  The resident hummers here are Anna's and Costas, but during migration I might also see black-chinned, broad-billed, broad-tailed and rufous.  One time, several years ago, I was even privileged to have a rare violet-crowned spend a couple of weeks in my yard.  

Quite near the hummingbird feeder hangs a hollowed-out gourd that has been used by nesting house finches for several seasons.  Recently I've noticed a female house finch making many forays to the nest and the other day, after seeing her leave, I took a peek inside and saw a little face looking at me.

Baby House Finch in the Nest

The first-to-bloom cactus in my yard is this little claret cup - a form of hedgehog cactus, Echinocereus coccineus (triglochidiatus), and the only cactus in Arizona that is adapted for hummingbird pollination.

It grows naturally on rocky cliffs and gravelly slopes in oak and pine-oak woodlands and mixed conifer forest, so is not common at this elevation.

It's certainly not a great wildflower year, but around the neighborhood I have spotted a variety of blooms.

Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata)

Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa)

Twining Milkweed Vine

Desert Zinnia (Zinnia acerosa)

Fairy Duster (Calliandra eriophylla)

Desert Globemallow

Chicory or maybe Tackstem?

Milkweed

Ocotillo and Carpenter Bee

The beautiful Harris' hawks are seen every day, and appear to be nesting again in the neighborhood, which makes me very happy.  Yesterday a female flew right over me with a meal in her talons.  She landed on a utility pole and commenced dining.  Her companions continued to circle overhead, hoping, perhaps, to share in the meal.  One of the birds was a very different color, so I'm guessing he was still quite young.

Here's hoping your week is full of interesting and beautiful sights!

A Bloomy, Herpy, Birdy Day

The monsoon downpours have mostly avoided the Desert Museum, but the bit of rain that has been received has made a transformative difference.  The flowers have burst into bloom, the ocotillos are covered in green leaves, strange insects have emerged, and everything seems so ALIVE!

Fishhook Mammilaria with Bee

Grabbing my attention immediately were the tiny Mammilaria cacti (Mammilaria microcarpa) often hidden under vegetation which have now burst into bloom everywhere.  Delighting the eye like finding a hidden treasure.  A wreath of pink flowers encircles top of the stalks, which may only reach 6" in height.

Also called Pincushion Cactus

The somewhat nondescript Little Leaf Cordia shrub is also suddenly covered in blossoms - clusters of delicate white flowers that seem to float in the air.  Each afternoon the flowers fall off and the next morning the bush is covered with them once again.

Little Leaf Cordia (Cordia parvifolia)

Little Leaf Cordia Blossom

Hanging bunches of lemon-yellow trumpet-shaped flowers are brightening the Tecoma stans bushes, which both please and aggravate me - why can't MY Tecoma stans ever look this good?!

Yellow Trumpet Bush (Tecoma stans)

The normally-barren stalks of the ocotillo are now fully-leafed-out waving green wands.

Ocotillo in Leaf (Fouquieria splendens)

The leaves will remain until dry conditions return, eventually turning orange-brown and then falling off.  This cycle can be repeated many times during the warmer months.  The canes are covered with spines, but this plant is not a cactus.  With its relative the Boojum, it is a member of the Ocotillo family.

More yellow!  This is the Senna polyantha, whose large shrubs produce a mass of small, yellow, five-petaled flowers followed by bean pods containing the fruit.  As so many of our desert plants, this is a member of the Fabaceae family (lugumes).

Senna polyantha

Everywhere I went on the grounds, something was blooming.  I passed this attractive bouquet on my way to see what the Trichocereus garden was doing.

I wasn't disappointed.  Big, bright flowers greeted me as I came around the corner.

From the splashy to the more subtle, but no less beautiful.

Another docent had reported seeing Western tanagers in the Desert Garden earlier in the morning, so I thought I would try my luck at finding them.  I caught just a blur of red as one of the males flew by, but I hung around to watch a Northern Cardinal family.  I believe this is the juvenile getting a drink from the fountain.

And who's that in the background? Photobombed by a juvie brown-headed cowbird.  There are a lot of young birds everywhere at the Museum.  Just outside the Desert Garden in a pine tree was this Gila woodpecker family.  The parents working hard to feed the demanding youngster.

Gila Woodpecker Family (Melanerpes uropygialis)

I apologize for the quality of this photo.  The lighting was very difficult.  Very near here, in the fan palms, I saw a young male Hooded Oriole, one of so many species that nest here on the grounds.  Heading back around to the Pollination Garden, I was greeted by this mix of Mexican Bird of Paradise and Tecoma stans, framed by ocotillos.

The butterflies love the bird of paradise.  A pipevine swallowtail sat still just long enough for me to grab a quick photo.

Pipevine Swallowtail on Mexican Bird of Paradise

The lizards were out in force. I particularly like this zebra-tailed lizard who often carries his tail curled over his back, and waves it back and forth in the manner of a scorpion.

Zebra-tailed Lizard (Callisaurus draconoides)

It was about this time of day that I got a call on the radio that there was a Gila monster in the dry cave.  It's always a thrill to see a Gila monster in the wild, and I headed off across the grounds, getting stopped several times by visitors who had questions.  By the time I got to the cave, the docent there told me that the lizard had gone behind a large sign and was no longer visible.  By squeezing into a small space beside the sign and shining the light from the flashlight app on my phone, I was able to spot the fellow.  He had wedged himself as far as possible into a hiding space.

Although I felt bad about it, I had to call the herpetology folks to come and remove him.  The cave is quite dark and we didn't need the visitors stumbling into him if he went out roaming.  This is the only venomous lizard in the U.S., and while they are neither fast or aggressive, they can be dangerous if people get too curious.  (People do some really DUMB things!)  So, a few minutes later he was loaded in a crate, to be pit-tagged and then released off grounds.

Leaving the cave and making our way back to the docent office for lunch, a crowd had gathered to watch one of the botanists try to capture a coachwhip snake who had moved into the lizard enclosure.  To avoid the big human, the snake had climbed high into the large ironwood tree that is the centerpiece of the enclosure.

Coachwhip in Desert Ironwood

Can you see him up there?  These snakes are very fast! I never would have believed that the botany guy would be able to catch up to and grab the snake, especially without getting bitten.  Although they are not venomous, the word on coachwhips is that they are very bitey.  But I would have been wrong!  Down came Eric, snake in hand, having survived his encounter with that very prickly tree and with the snake.

Generally, the policy is to let non-venomous snakes alone unless they are in a place where they would threaten our exhibit animals (the lizards in this case).

In the afternoon, we got some more cheap entertainment watching the black-tailed prairie dogs and their ever amusing antics.

And, if that weren't enough fun for one day, there was one more snake on the schedule.  Some visitors spotted a snake sticking its head up out of a tree bowl in front of the hummingbird aviary.  Some fellow docents and I were just a few feet away so we got a lot of laughs watching the snake, another coachwhip, play hide and seek among the rocks and holes.  It reminded us of a game of whack-a-mole.  He would pop up one place, disappear, pop up a few feet away, then we'd just see a portion of the body slither by.  After ten minutes or so of this, out jumped a very tiny mouse and raced across the patio and up onto the roof of the aviary.  The snake looked out as in bewilderment.

Coachwhip looking for the Mouse

Eventually he emerged and crossed the patio looking for the darned mouse.

Mouse 1, Snake 0.

And with that, the day came to a close.  Back at home, a glass of wine in hand, I got another gift.  A magnificent sunset.

Sunset on Agave Drive

May all your days be filled with laughs and may they all have beautiful endings!